A NATION AT WAR: BAGHDAD

A NATION AT WAR: BAGHDAD; Surprise Strike at Outset Leaves Urgent Mystery: Who Was Hit?

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and DAVID JOHNSTON

Published: March 21, 2003

WASHINGTON, March 20—
Intelligence officials had long been frustrated in their attempts to track Saddam Hussein's erratic movements. Then, on Wednesday, according to senior government officials, Iraqi informants produced a lead. The Iraqi leader, and possibly his two sons, were said to be in a private house built over an underground bunker in southern Baghdad.

What happened next, one senior administration official said today, ''has created one of the great mysteries of the first day of the war -- did we hit anyone and if so, who did we get?''

Tonight, officials were still holding out hope that one of the American 2,000-pound bombs and nearly 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles, each carrying 1,000 pounds of explosives, might have struck Mr. Hussein or one of his sons, Qusay and Uday. ''It may take days,'' the official said, ''to sift through it all.''

Today, the mystery deepened as intelligence agencies monitoring Iraqi communications detected a significant drop in intercepted conversations among the nation's top leaders. Some officials speculated that Iraq's leadership had gone underground, Others believed that, as one official put it, ''their phones melted.''

Either way, it was a surprise start to the war. It began close to 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, according to administration officials, when George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, received the tip that Mr. Hussein and his top leadership might be in the fortified bunker in Baghdad. Mr. Tenet raced to the Pentagon to discuss the information with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, then spoke to Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The administration officials said they had been relying on intelligence from Iraqis who had not spoken to them in the past. ''People are talking to us now and telling us things now that they would never have dreamed of telling us,'' one senior official said. ''People are sticking their necks out in all kinds of ways in Iraq that they never would do before.''

''There was no question about the legality of the target, but there was some discussion about how solid the information was and who might actually be there and when,'' the official said. ''The conclusion was that even though we didn't know for sure, it was an important target in any case.''

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of allied forces in the Persian Gulf, received the same intelligence from C.I.A. officers in the field that Mr. Tenet was giving Mr. Rumsfeld, the official said. Even before Mr. Bush signed the attack order, General Franks, at his command post near Doha, Qatar, began planning a strike with Tomahawk cruise missiles against the bunker, the official said, and he ordered the F-117 stealth fighter jets aloft in preparation to strike.

Around 3:30 p.m., Mr. Tenet and Mr. Rumsfeld carried the information to a meeting with President Bush and his top national security officials in the Oval Office. For three hours, the group discussed the source of the information, how likely it was to be true, and the risks of the operation. They spoke to General Franks in Qatar and came to the decision, the official said, that Tomahawk cruise missiles alone would not destroy a bunker that intelligence showed was buried under layers of dirt and concrete.

Assembled for the discussion about the attack was Mr. Bush's war council: Mr. Rumsfeld; Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice; the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., and General Myers.

The group concluded that it was imperative to send the F-117's, which can carry 2,000-pound ''bunker buster'' bombs, a much heavier payload than a cruise missile.

According to senior government officials, Mr. Bush listened impassively as his top aides debated what might be done, weighing whether to stick with the meticulously scheduled opening of the war given the extraordinary possibility that the United States could land a potentially lethal blow against the Iraqi leadership.

''This was the end of the 48-hour period for Saddam to get out of Iraq,'' one government official said. ''So to have at that very moment when you're considering starting a conflict, to have a fairly good idea of knowing where senior-most leaders are, is a pretty nice confluence.''

Throughout the Oval Office meeting, Mr. Bush's advisers maintained open telephone lines to military commanders in the field. As the meeting wore on, military planners ordered the coordinates of the Baghdad house entered into the guidance systems of cruise missiles based on eight ships in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

At 7:12 p.m., senior administration officials said, Mr. Bush gave the order to execute the strike. ''Let's go,'' Mr. Bush said, according to an administration official who provided an account of the meeting.

General Franks had told the group that a decision had to be made no later than 7:15 p.m., which was 3:15 a.m. in Iraq.

Administration officials did not explain the reasons for the deadline, but military commanders were clearly concerned about allowing American warplanes to linger in enemy airspace as dawn approached in Baghdad.

The two planes already en route from Qatar, nearly 700 miles away, flew into the air defenses ringing Baghdad and dropped four 2,000-pound bombs on the bunker. At nearly the same time, 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from ships and submarines in the Red Sea and the northern Persian Gulf hit Iraqi command structures surrounding the bunker.

The aircraft were already returning to their base when Mr. Bush gave his Oval Office speech at 10:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. By 10:40, after the president had returned to the residence, Ms. Rice telephoned him to say that the planes had safely cleared Iraqi airspace.

Administration officials said today that even though they were unsure if they had killed Mr. Hussein, they were sure they had hit a bunker of top Iraqi officials.

''To this moment, we don't know who it was,'' a senior administration official said. ''There was some belief it was him. But there was absolute certainty it was leadership.''

Bush administration officials were adamant that the last-minute strike had not compromised a meticulous Pentagon battle plan, either by advance warning or by speeding up the attack.

''It seems to me that if you think you can get the top leadership, and it doesn't happen to fit your plan, it would be irresponsible not to take the chance,'' one senior official said. ''Wouldn't you have backed an effort to get Hitler in 1939?''